Tax to GDP ratio improves to 14.09% in first 7 months

THE national government’s tax collection as a percentage of the gross domestic product, or the tax to GDP ratio, improved to 14.09 percent of GDP in the first seven months of the year from 13.89 percent in the same period last year, the Department of Finance (DOF) said on Wednesday.

In absolute terms, tax revenue in the seven months to July rose 6.8 percent to P1.042 trillion from the year-earlier level of P976 billion, data from the DOF showed.

In a statement, the DOF said tax collection during the period reflected improvements to tax administration as there was no new tax measure implemented during the period.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) accounted for bulk of the tax collected in the seven months. Its collections increased by 8 percent to P824 billion from P763 billion in the comparative 2014 period.

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) collected P208 billion, or 2.4 percent higher than the P203 billion generated a year earlier, while other agencies accounted for a further 2.6 percent increase in collections to P9.3 billion from P9.1 billion.

Without giving details, the DOF said overall revenue collected surged 14.9 percent in the first seven months while expenditures grew by only 10.9 percent.

As a result, the national government’s deficit in the period stood at the equivalent of 0.25 percent of GDP, narrower than the 0.79 percent deficit posted in the 2014 corresponding period.

“Compared with the target deficit equivalent to 2 percent of GDP, the end-July actual deficit of 0.25 percent shall enable government to provide fiscal space to push economic growth to higher levels during the remainder of the year, even with the ongoing global financial volatilities and threat of El Nino phenomenon,” DOF Undersecretary and chief economist Gil Beltran stated.

Meanwhile, government debt in relation to GDP dropped to 45.1 percent at end-July from 47.1 percent a year earlier, the DOF said, tracing the improvement to the combination of robust revenues and lower government deficit.